


Wolf's Winter Wasteland

by dandelioncoffee



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Graphic Description, Hallucinations, Hurt, Major Character Injury, Wolf Lyanna, sorry Ned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:28:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23100232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelioncoffee/pseuds/dandelioncoffee
Summary: What happens when you're stranded in a wasteland? Do you lie down and wait for help? No. You get up and keep going.
Kudos: 6





	Wolf's Winter Wasteland

Eddard Stark trudges onwards through the snow. Grasping at his wayfinder, he checks the pull of the needle once more. He must get back to Winterfell, but the sole way he knew to get there was by simply walking due north. Tried as he might, the King’s Road was nowhere to be found. He was utterly lost. The tundra upon which he walked was unlike any he’d ever travelled before. Even when venturing with Benjen to the Wall, he had never seen such a barren landscape. Of trees and plants, only sparse low-lying bushes and twigs. Stranger yet, there was not an animal to be seen for days. Cold wind blew and bit at his face and seemed to burrow beneath his furs, a deep chill filling him from head to toe. _No wonder nothing lives here_ , Ned thought, _if even furs cured for a highborn cannot keep out the chill, I fear to imagine what one animal would have to look like to survive this weather._

Ned has been walking since daybreak, and many days before that. Now, the sun has long since begun its decent past the icy horizon. He was beginning to tire, limbs heavy with the exertion of ploughing through thick snow. There was a woods coming up, evergreens swaying in the bold arctic wind. He’d stop there for the night, see if he could fashion a crude camp to sleep in.

The woods are small, less like a forest and more like a collection of thickets. Ned does, however, succeed in finding an overhanging of brush and snow that would serve as some cover from windchill. What worries him though is that there are no fallen logs or even sticks littering the ground here. Meaning no kindling for a fire, meaning no reprieve from the frigid temperatures. Furthermore, he has no tool to cut down a tree, and must admit to himself that even if he did, he is simply too tired to cut one down. Instead, he cuts a piece of dried and salted pork from the last of his reserves and chews it to a paste, hoping to fool his body into thinking it is full. It works for the first five minutes, before his stomach begins to ache once more. He knows he simply cannot— he must not—run out of food before he gets back home. Little food, no fire, and with only the matted, dirty furs on his back to keep him warm, Ned curls in on himself and tries to fall asleep.

Ned wakes as the first rays of pink light reflect and flicker over the snow. He thanks the gods that nothing disturbed him during the night. Cutting off a sliver of the final piece of the pork for breakfast, he hauls himself to his feet, knees creaking in the cold. Ned reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wayfinder with still stiff fingers. He got turned around after finding the alcove, but no matter, he just needs to follow the needle… pointing directly through a large clearing in between him and the next thicket with snow piled thickly upon the ground. His boots, luckily, are the sort they craft at Castle Black with widened soles, meant for travel through such terrain. But… how did he come across these? Last he knew he was in King’s Landing where you’d have no need for footwear as large or heavy or _warm_ as these. He hadn’t a pair even when travelling south. _How did I get these, how did I get here?_ These thoughts weigh heavily on Ned’s mind as he walks tirelessly throughout the day. _I feel like I would remember such an event, but my mind has gone fuzzy. I’m missing something important. I need to get to Winterfell and find out what the hell is happening._

...

As Ned walks through the forest, he finds it to be much thicker and longer than his original estimate. When he finally gets to what he thinks to be a clearing, it becomes apparent that it is instead a lake, frozen over, nestled and encircled in a thick ring of trees. The wayfinder that Ned clutches in his hand points directly down the centre of the lake. While it is true he could simply go around, the lake is so large that picking his way around the dense, frozen underbrush to go around would slow him exponentially. So, he ventures to place a tentative foot upon the edge of the ice. To his luck, it holds. He places his full on that foot… no difference. He continues out, strides slow and deliberate, ears attuned for even the slightest creak. His paces grow to a normal pace as he reaches the centre of the lake with no incident, content that it will hold.

That is, until a large grey wolf emerges from the brush, west of where Ned stands on the frozen water. Imitating that upon which he stands, Ned stills within a fraction of a second. The beast is large, larger than any wolf he’s ever seen before. _Except, it’s not, is it?_ If he weren’t so focused on the approach of the animal, he would have likely been shocked at the idea that he’s seen a dire wolf before. Despite it being the sigil of his house, no one has seen a dire wolf in the north for hundreds of years. The animal stops at the edge of the lake, then lifts its great head to look at Ned. The wind is stronger here, in the clearing with no trees to buff it. The shaggy furs both of the back of Ned and the wolf rustle and stand up in the chilling motion. Ned doesn’t feel a thing. His entire body is tense, hyper vigilant to the wolf, waiting for its next move. The wolf continues staring, then takes a step upon the ice. It creaks and shatters, lines running up a metre’s length from the paw’s impact.

Pure fear fills Eddard Stark, Lord of Winterfell, Warden of the North. He is supposed to know better, he’s lived in the north for close to his whole life. _What fool would try to cross a frozen lake by themselves? No matter how cold the air or solid the ice._ And even know, he knows he must try to get off of the ice, slow and steady, spreading out his weight, but he is frozen to the spot. The wolf, having retreated off of the ice, still stares from the shore. Ned cannot see its eyes from such a distance, but he is sure that they are rooted right to his own. The cracks from the wolf’s step spread, emboldened by the change in pressure. The lines twist and cut through the ice, approaching Ned with a fearsome speed. They near a metre from where he stands before his legs jerk back in reflex, but he is too quick, too sharp of a footfall, and the lines split under the the soles of his feet.

He closes his eyes. Waits for the ice to give way and for his body to plunge into the freezing depths.

It doesn’t.

He blinks once, twice, then opens his eyes. The wolf is waiting still, at the bank. It is standing on the precipice between the rocky shore and the splintered ice, one paw in the air as if it thinks to attempt to cross again. Yet, once Eddard’s eyes meet its face, small with distance, the animal backs up, and disappears back into the trees.

Quickly, Ned looks down at the ice underfoot. The cracks are still there, yet the ice remains solid.

Adrenaline is still pounding through his body as inspects his surroundings. _I am not safe yet.Which way is best to get to shore? The western bank is the closest, but the break is the hardest._ Carefully twisting his neck to look behind him, he sees the southern shore isn’t much closer either. He had walked further out than he had even known. _North, then._ As he swivels his head to look now to the left, he sees that the ice ahead is relatively unmarred. He shuffles a foot forwards, not letting it leave the surface. The ice doesn’t even creak. He shuffles the other foot, and still no reaction. “Blessed be the gods, thank you for my life,” Ned breathes, looking down in split second prayer, before continuing onwards.

...

By the time Ned has crossed the lake, night has fallen once more, inky blackness seeping into blues and purples. But in this descending darkness, he spots something. Flickers of red, yellow and orange casting light through the trees. _A fire, thank the gods._ He trudges closer, hand falling to his hip, grasping at the pommel of his short-sword, should there be any ill intent. As he comes closer, the silhouettes of two men are highlighted by the fire. They are dressed in molding, scraggy furs, coarse hair matted and twisted into crude braids. _Wildlings._ Fickle men, they are, and quite unlikely to share the warmth of their flames with the Warden of the North. The very man who aids Castle Black in pressing their people back behind the Wall. However, Ned doesn’t have a choice. The chill is really beginning to wear at him and he will suffer if he doesn’t warm up soon. He approaches, his footsteps miraculously silent.

“I’m sorry to disrupt you, but my name is Eddard of House Stark, Lord of Winterfell. I have been travelling for days and I wish to warm by your fire. I will be on my way quick as I can.”

The Wildings don’t answer. They don’t even turn their heads.

Breathing in, lungs rattling with the cold, Ned ventures another step closer, keeping a wide berth just in case. But what awaits his eyes as he walks around to face them chills him to his core, far more deadly than any arctic wind or snow. The wildlings are dead. Their bodies are propped up by arms frozen to resting legs. They bare no expression, dry and decomposing skin peeling around their jaws and cheeks. But the most horrifying feature is their eyes. Wide open, pupils of piercing blue look into nothingness, the flames the of fire dancing, reflecting on the crystalline appearance.

Ned wastes no time. He shoves the bodies into the flames, terror once again filling his limbs with a cold urgency. Then he runs. Runs because if there are more, a fire crackling with the smell of burning flesh will alert them faster than a hunting horn does hounds. Behind him, the flames roar, erupting into the sky and engulfing the surrounding trees, blazing waves of heat that lick at his back as he slips and fumbles as fast as his limbs will carry him.

The trees form a maze around him, his vision tunnelling as he picks a path through eyes blurring with icy cold, but he cannot stop. The heat of the fireball is pressing against his furs and will engulf him without hesitation if he slows by even a pace. Pine needles scratch and tear at his face and hands as he pushes and ducks and jumps, creating whatever distance he can. Blood is roaring in his eyes and his heart is throbbing so hard he can feel it reverberate throughout his entire body. But soon the trees start to thin. Ned runs faster.

He breaks through the tree line, but is almost pushed back by a gust of sleeting wind that rips across his body. He continues running. Snow is pelting down now in icy turrets, cutting into his face and furs. The wind is whipping them around, coating the horizon and Ned’s entire vision in white. His feet move blindly across the tundra, catching in pockets of snow but pulled out just as quickly. His bare fingers have gone numb, along with the rest of his face. The only thing he can feel now is the pounding of his own blood coursing through his body to keep him moving.

But even that stops. Once of Ned’s feet catches in a deep snowdrift, lodged by a rock or frozen outcrop. He crashes forwards. His leg, twisted, crunches and cracks, followed by his head hitting the ground synonymously. He groans as thick, warm liquid begins to drip from his forehead and jaw. It runs down his face and down his neck, seeping into the soft fur coating of his cloak and staining it red. He lays there, he’s not sure for how long. Drifting in and out of consciousness for what may be minutes or hours. All he knows is that when he deigns to get up, the blizzard has blown over, and the flakes of snow now fall gently.Ned leverages his arms beneath his torso and pushes himself up onto his back, and then sees the true damage; he hadn’t even felt it.

 _My leg!_ The bone has splintered through his calf and blood oozes out of the hole it has speared through his flesh. _I… I don’t feel a thing. Am I hallucinating?_ He reaches down to touch it gingerly, fingers shaking. The bone is solid and he can feel the ghost of movement as it shifts against his touch, but there is still no pain. Straining to sit up, Ned rips off a strip of the pelt from his cloak and wraps the bone against his leg. _Even if I cannot feel it now, I will not let this get any worse._

Ned, despite the fact that there is no chance of him being able to move unless he drags himself through the snow, reaches for his satchel and shoves a hand in for his wayfinder. _How disoriented did I get running?_ He pulls it out, no more a wayfinder than a crumpled piece of metal with a needle sticking out of it. _Needle. Why does that ring a bell? Needle…_ As he fumbles with the device it comes to him, all at once, the horrific realization of what he’s done. _Arya!_ _Arya, Sansa! How could I have abandoned them? Catelyn, Robb,_ Bran, _Rickon… please let them be safe. Please._

_I need to get back to them. Damn my leg._

Ned grits his teeth, praying to whatever god will hear him that his broken leg will not give out. He stands, swaying like a blade of summer grass. He takes one step before the bone crunches underneath the slightest weight he had tried to put on it and he falls back onto the snow. He hits the ground with a fist. _I will not leave them alone._

As Ned tries once more to lift himself up, the snow crunches in front of him. He looks up, ready to face whatever has come to claim him. Above him, the grey dire wolf from the lake looks down on him, her gleaming yellow eyes meeting his own. He remembers her. _Impossible. This is the dead she-wolf from which I took her pups._ For just a second, Ned waits for her to snarl and attack him. But the animal does the opposite. It presses its snout against Ned’s head, and then lies against his side exposed to the wind, shielding him from the cold. He cards a hand through her thick fur, and whispers, “Lyanna.”

The wolf howls softly. It echoes once in the snowy wasteland, then all Eddard of House Stark sees is black.

**Author's Note:**

> this story actually started out as a creative writing assignment for my english class! I really enjoyed writing it and was moderately proud of it so hey? why not post it?
> 
> comments, kudos, and constructive criticism are highly appreciated! 💕


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